IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY NOT THAT OF YOUR CHILDREN TO KEEP YOUR NAME ALIVE.
The list of men and women and women who have walked across the sand of times in this world, leaving indelible footprints is inexhaustible. Some have left shoes that can not be filled by their successors, because their achievements were so great that it is not easily equaled or contested against. while some have left such wonderful and beautiful foot prints that the world have simply to looked up to and admire but not dare to taint not smudge. These are looked upon and regarded as giants of the world. Some of them we saw in the literary and academic circles, while some where leaders of lands, others were militant or revolutionary while some of these greats were holy men and women.
Alas, there is another side to this coin. There are men and women though made the pages of history, yet left such untidy and messy footprints that evry one including their own children strive not to be identified with them.
The question one is wont to ask at this juncture is this Where are the children of these great folks. Where are the successors who are to carry their names and continue with the great works they did?
Men strive to bequeath there names on there children for the vain quest for immortality. On going presently is the issue of who really owns a child/ Is it the biological father or the one that has taken up the social and financial and mental responsibility of raising the child. These unfortunately, globally has put the erroneous pressure on the supposed importance of the male child over the female.
We go down memory lane and remember the likes of Olauda Equino, Karl Marx, Archimedes, Isaac Newton, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King jr, Oliver Cromwell, Abraham Lincoln, Che Guevera, Shaka Zulu, Wiston Churchill, William Shakespeare, Louis Armstrong, Madam Theresa, Mary Selessor and such men and women that are written in the annals of our worlds history.
The truth of the matter is that it is not their sons that are keeping their names alive. All these ones kept their names alive by the way they lived, by what they gave or did for humanity. Yes, while some of them were localized in their success stories, some where heavily global.
These people fall into diverse categories.
Their are some who did not even marry nor had children, Like our Lord Jesus the Christ, Apostle Paul and more contemporary ones like Mama Theresa. Yet their names, works and legacies to the world has transcended their times and will surely stand powerful and shining in the light of time as far as there is life on earth.
There are those like Olauda Ekwuno, who was renamed Oloda Aquino by his slave masters, and everything was done by these morbid racists to erase his name from the words history books. But his name has so stuck and his works so deep that he has become simply indelible. Whether ha had children or not no body can easily tell. But this writer has decided to dig deeper into the life and times of this great African son of Igbo origin.
There are however, those like Loius Odumegwu Ojukwu, despite his mighty works, and historical achievement as the first black man to own a Rolls Royce, his son Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu seem to have surpassed him. So both took their own paths of life and made their individual histories. So the father is remembered for his personal works and achievement while the son did his his own way.
There really is a group like Fela and Bob Marley whom their children really tried, but unfortunately daddy’s were simply too large to fill. So no matter how hrad they tried, they still waled under daddy’s shadows and name. In cases like this, You here expressions like Fela’s son is quite great, just like his father. It is like is the son drops the fathers name and tries to carve a new nitch for himself, he will just disappear.
Like I mentioned before, there are those like Hitler, whom their footprints are so bloody and their name so soiled that even their children reject and even deny it.
Another fall out from this category are those who did not achieve anything at all. Yet they are hankling for their children to bear their names.
In Igboland of the East of Nigeria, one can appreciate some powerful folks working had for their children to bear their names, because some of them have earned some societal recognition and titles which has to be passed on their children.
Therefore it gets comical to see a typical village loser fighting for the same cause.
So, it goes to show, that the onus really does not lie on our children to carry the flag of our names. Indeed sons and daughters don’t, and hardly keep their parents names alive. It is our responsibility to keep our name.
What we do with the life we live will determine if our names should be included in history.
The question certain parents don’t bother to ask is What about the names of their children.
The reason we talk today about Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ahmadu Bello, Tafawa Balewa, Obafemi Awolowo, Michael Okpara, Akanu Ibiam, Moshood Abiola, Mallam Aminu Kanu, Patrice Lumumba, Albert Eistein, Peter Reubens, Michael Angello. Aristotle Onassis, Pele, Maradonna, Kenny Rogers, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Betty Wright and millions of other legends whose name are immortalized in the history books of our times is not because of their male or female children.
It is about what they did when they lived!!
And what do you think?
